On Sunday morning, 17 November 2013, I was
ringing on my own when a few redpolls
moved around, and I caught three small groups of 3, 4
and 4. In the middle group was the palest redpoll I have ever seen in the hand.
I took some notes and put it down as a Common (Mealy) Redpoll but on reviewing
my photos that afternoon I wondered if I had missed an Arctic Redpoll of the
(Scandinavian) Coues' race (Carduelis hornemanni exilipes). I have never
seen Arctic Redpoll in the hand, although I have watched Hoary Redpoll in the field on snowy
days in the USA. I am embarrassed not to have considered this possibility in
detail at the time, mainly because the rump was not as pure white as I expected
for an Arctic. I now know that my expectation was wrong, and also that I
crucially missed recording the underside, especially the undertail coverts.
Fortunately I had plenty of photographic evidence, sufficient to confirm its
identity:

Arctic Redpoll!

It had a wing of 70.5mm, the same as a typical
Lesser Redpoll (and just about the bottom of the range for a Common Redpoll),
but it looked bigger, perhaps because it had a longer tail, and weighed 12.5g
(with no visible fat), whereas the other ten ranged from 9.5g to 11.0g. Its bill
seemed small and short. The red poll patch was small (although of course that
can be very variable and this poll is much the same size as the breeding female
Lesser Redpoll that I previously depicted on
this website).
Every feather that on a Lesser Redpoll would be creamy/ buff/ brown, on this
bird seemed to be pale grey or white. The flanks were white with some streaking,
decreasing towards the tail, but regrettably I did not note or photograph the
undertail coverts. In behaviour, this bird called incessantly whilst in the net
and whilst being processed, unusual for a redpoll, although to my ears the call
did not sound any different from a standard Lesser Redpoll. It did eventually
quieten down when I was photographing it.

Its short bill showed in
comparison with two Lesser Redpolls:

Its comparatively long tail is
clearly shown in the following composite image showing a Lesser Redpoll (caught
an hour later) which had the same wing length:

I normally find it very
difficult to see a moult limit in the greater coverts of LESREs but this one was
easy, as shown in the following photo: 5 ogcs, shorter and duller, with less
extensive white tips than the replaced adult-type greater coverts which were
obviously darker and glossier. The tertials were already quite worn, much more
so than on typical first-year Lesser Redpolls at this time of year.

I now realise that this bird
fits pretty well with Svensson's depiction (below) of the rump of Arctic
Redpolls, presuming that it is an immature female. It was certainly a first-year
(Euring age code 3) and the small size suggested female. A wing-length of 70.5mm
is the smallest in a sample of 84 exilipes (47 males and 37 females)
quoted by Marc Herremans in his paper "Taxonomy and evolution in redpolls"
Ardea (1990) 78: 441-458.

The only Arctic Redpolls
previously recorded in Cheshire and Wirral were one in December 1995 and two in
January 1996, at three different sites, with none since. Common Redpolls are also county rarities so I asked Hugh Pulsford for his opinion, as
County Recorder, and sent my description and photos to Chris Batty as an MRG
colleague but particularly as a member of the BBRC who has a special interest in
redpolls. Chris replied including the comments In the case of your bird, we cannot see the longest undertail coverts, and
the rump is undeniably streaked across its length, so it would fail as a Coues’
Arctic on both criteria. However, I am confident your bird is a Coues’ Arctic
Redpoll, and I would accept it as such on the basis that the pallid appearance
of the bird is beyond the limits of Mealy Redpoll; especially the nape, mantle
and scapulars that are uniformly broadly fringed white without any significant
brown tones, the large extent of white rump reaching the smallest tertials (even
if it is streaked), and the white forehead. First-winter redpolls are described
as being more streaked than adults, although I am not sure from where this fact
is sourced. Of unknown significance, but the slight sandy wash below the cheek
and bib is an appearance I associate with Arctic Redpoll.

As luck would have it, the December
2013 issue of British Birds contained a lengthy
article "Redpolls: a
review of their taxonomy, identification and British status"
British Birds (2013) 106: 708-736 by Andy Stoddart, so I sent him a draft
copy of this page with all the images, to which he replied What a lovely Arctic Redpoll! It shows all the necessary features and although
the rump might not be to some people’s taste, it’s actually well within the
range of variation. A great record for Cheshire!

A complication, which somewhat distracted me
from this bird, was that one of the others caught at the same time looked like a
standard Lesser Redpoll apart from having a white rump.

This one (an adult female) also
had three all-white greater coverts, one on the right and two on the left wing,
and I wonder if she has some colour deficiency, perhaps from old-age, as often
seen with Blackbirds. If you're just looking through a flock, trying to find a redpoll with a white rump,
this could fool people!

The three birds whose heads are
depicted above were actually this white-rumped Lesser Redpoll, a 'normal' Lesser
Redpoll, and the Arctic Redpoll.

Or, with their mantle and rumps
concealed:

With hindsight I am now feeling that the
identification seems obvious, but it's a bit different having had several days
to think about it and do some research, rather than a few minutes with birds in
the hand. This bird looks much more like a classic Arctic Redpoll than most of
the supposed ones that are photographed and depicted elsewhere on the internet.

I'm sure this is not the way that we would have
wanted to bring up the 200 species, preferring one seen by lots of us, but I
hope that MRG members will be able to enjoy this one second-hand through this
article.

I don't often ring a new species nowadays but
caught three in seven months in 2013 .